


Head to the stars

by SharkEnthusiast



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Cuban Lance (Voltron), Gen, Homesick Lance (Voltron), Hunk & Lance (Voltron) Friendship, Hurt Lance (Voltron), Lance (Voltron) Angst, Lance (Voltron) Dies, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-07-19 03:03:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19966981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SharkEnthusiast/pseuds/SharkEnthusiast
Summary: Lance never thought he would go out this way.





	Head to the stars

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a very long time ago and read it and had feels so I decided to post it even though I’m thoroughly done with voltron

Lance never thought he would go out this way. 

He survived the war. Survived the chaos and blood and guns and mutiny. 

He always knew that there were repercussions, rebels, but he didn’t think he would  _ die  _ from them. 

He’s teaching. Farm work isn’t enough on Altea, and even though he was thoroughly compensated for his involvement in the war, Lance has a family to support. (He feels bad sitting on his ass anyways. He can’t do that, not when Keith and Hunk and Pidge are out doing incredible things.)

He likes teaching the kids, anyway. He may not be Altean, but Allura was and it’s his duty, his  _ honor,  _ to pass that legacy on. 

He’s going on and on about juniberry flowers and how ‘ _ ya know, they actually have medicinal qualities.’ _ when something hits him just in between his ribs. 

He does not feel himself falling. His stomach suddenly  _ hurts,  _ cold and sharp. He sees the kids begin to scream but  _ he can’t quite hear it _ . It seems far away and diluted but he sees Veronica rush to him. 

Someone must have gotten help from the castle. 

He doesn’t know how long it’s been. 

Lance is bleeding. His stomach is covered in it and his hands are slick with it and  _ he has no idea what just happened but he’s pretty sure someone just shot him.  _

Veronica is over him, one hand on his cheek, the other on the wound and it  _ hurts.  _

She saying something and her mouth is moving but he can’t hear it and everything is fading, dissolving, and it  _ hurts,  _ and he’s  _ dying.  _

He can’t feel himself anymore, really. It hurts to breathe and his mouth is filling with blood. He’s choking on it. Drowning in it. 

Veronica is crying. 

“I love you.” He says, faint. Because he knows he is dying, he knows this is it. 

“Tell them I love them.” He says. Because he wants them to know, even though he doesn’t know who them really is. 

(Keith. His mom and dad and niece and nephew and siblings and grandparents. His team.) 

It is all very scary now. It doesn’t feel welcoming, like they say it does. It feels cold and painful and  _ sad  _ and  _ tragic.  _

_ He doesn’t want to die.  _

He closes his eyes. Veronica is saying something but she is so far away. 

He pictures the beaches of Varadero, untouched by Zarkon. The pizza shack and the  _ people.  _ The kite surfing and complaining to his siblings about the tourists and the ice cream and the walk back from the beach and the water and- 

He manages to pry his eyes open and stare up at Veronica. 

She is crying. Her mouth is closed now. Not making any noise. She is silent and holding him while he bleeds and dies and Lance doesn’t think there is anything more painful than that. 

“I want to go home.” He says. 

He can’t feel anything anymore. He tries to move his arm, to grip Veronica’s shirt, to tell her that it’s okay.

_ Esta bien.  _

His arm doesn’t move and neither does his mouth. 

He closes his eyes again. Thinks of the calm gentle waves of the ocean, of the blue lion, Keith and of Allura. He thinks of Hunk and Pidge and his family and garlic knots and convincing Mary from the pizza shack in varadero to give him free food and how it was only because she liked him and how that one time Marco almost drowned and how his bedroom had glowstars taped to the ceiling  _ and- _

  
  


There is no letter, no video of Lance saying goodbye. 

He never did get around to prerecording one of those videos in case he died from his time in voltron. Said it was too depressing and he wasn’t gonna die anyway, so what did it matter. 

They cremate his body and track down the rebel that killed him. (From the tower of the castle. With a gun not very different than Lances.)

They wait until the remnants of Voltron is back and then make their way to earth. 

2 of them are gone now. Only 4 of them are left.

They go to beaten, charred, scared Varadero, to the McClain’s old house which is only a stack of rubble now.

(Rachel looks for glowstars in the ruins. Old Takashi Shirogane posters. Model spaceships. She doesn’t find anything.) 

They walk the flat, hot, cracked, asphalt to the crumpled boardwalk and dump Lance’s ashes into the grey, rancid, salty sea. 

There are no words exchanged. No condolences. Lance is dead and it  _ hurts.  _

They walk the crumpled boardwalk onto the flat, hot, cracked asphalt. They walk past the McClain’s old house and into a ship. They leave beaten, charred, scared Varadero and make their way back to New Altea, which has not changed enough as it should. 

  
  


_ It is not brighter than life. Not radiant, clean or white. It is nothing.  _

_ Lance makes his way through it, and it feels like he is trudging through molasses, sticky sweet, clinging to his limbs. He finally reaches her and she is just as beautiful as he remembers. Hair just as bright white, eyes just as blue. She is still wearing her paladin suit.  _

_ Lance will admit, that does make something in his stomach pull. _

_ “Hey.” He says. His voice sounds odd. He’s not even sure if he is actually speaking.  _

_ “Hello.” She says back. She gives him a smile, and he decides to return it.  _

_ She turns away from him to watch the world.  _

_ Lance does not. He doesn’t like to watch everyone cry over him.  _

_ “You should have moved on, you know.” Allura says. _

_ She is still not looking at him. _

_ Lance swallows the lump in his throat.  _

_ “Yeah.” He says. “I probably should have.”  _

For once, his head isn’t fixated at the stars, but finally focused below.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Whoops the endings trash. Hope you likey tho!!


End file.
